


Wild Card

by Anne_Animouse



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-06-10
Packaged: 2017-12-14 12:07:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/836691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anne_Animouse/pseuds/Anne_Animouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A master's motivation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wild Card

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Kink Bingo 2012 - Emotion Play kink

It hadn’t taken long for Red John to realise his game wasn’t nearly as much fun as he had thought it would be. The police just weren’t any good at playing along, and while the act of murder was satisfying enough in its own way, what Red John really wanted was a challenge. Someone that actually stood a chance at catching him, someone that he could be proud to call his rival. By the time he’d killed his eighth victim, the police were no closer to catching him than they had been when he’d made his first kill, and in fact they’d gotten so desperate that they’d turned to psychics for assistance. He hadn’t been sure whether to be annoyed or flattered.

When that hack tv psychic had first gotten involved and dared to try to profile him, Red John had definitely been leaning towards annoyance, and it had been natural for him to retaliate. The man had insulted him, belittled him, attempted to make a mockery of his great works, and as such had made himself a prime target for Red John’s displeasure. He’d visited Patrick Jane’s home, had his way with the other man’s wife and child, and had assumed that that would be the end of the matter. But it hadn’t worked out quite as Red John had intended, and it was that wild card factor that Jane brought to the hunt that made Red John realise what he had been missing.

When Patrick Jane had returned home from his latest televised con to find his family mutilated in the master bedroom of their happy home, Red John had expected him to crumble. He’d seen the response of other men upon discovering his presents, and he hadn’t really anticipated anything beyond the usual; denial, disbelief, bitter tears and grief. But Jane had given him so much more, Red John had known immediately that this was the man he had been waiting for. This was the adversary he needed to bring the spark back into his life.

Patrick Jane had been grief-stricken, of course. He had screamed and wept and cursed and raged for days and Red John had stood back and watched the show from a safe distance. The news had had a field day with the imminent psychic’s tragic loss and subsequent retirement from the spotlight, and Red John had followed the stories with a great deal of interest. He had nevered murdered anyone for personal reasons before, and he’d found the obvious affect his actions had on his rival to be almost intoxicating.

When the man had shown up at Red John’s next crime scene in the company of the CBI’s Serious Crimes division, Red John had seen something he’d never expected. Gone was the smug light of conceit that had marked the man’s every appearance on television. The rage and self-doubt that had plagued Jane in the interviews following the death of his family had vanished, turned inwards. He had sharpened his grief and guilt and remorse into a finely honed weapon, and for the first time Red John had felt an honest thrill. Patrick Jane was not the battered and broken man that he had expected him to be. He had purpose and drive unlike anything Red John had seen before, and it had been a thing of beauty to watch the way the formerly charismatic television personality had changed into a coldly calculating hunter, Ahab on the quest for his own white whale.

John had felt like a craftsman, watching kiln-fired pottery take on a life of its own. It had been a thing of beauty, and it had given him new direction in a game he had begun to lose interest in. Evading the police was all well and good, but now John knew the real prize of the game, and he wouldn’t stop until he had seen Patrick Jane crumble.


End file.
